Want a digital camera able to take long videos

xxdeebeexx

My son wants a compact digital camera for Christmas that he can switch on and video until the memory card is full. Not all of them have this facility - some will only video for a few minutes before powering off. I have a budget of around £50 has anyone any suggestions please.

TIA

Dx

totalsolutions

That's normal for a digital camera a few minutes only stored on internal memory then transferred to storage card. You would need a digicam for what your son wants.

Seagull

I had a Canon Ixus 700 which is a compact camera (replaced by newer models) that would record .avi video until the SD card was full, I doubt that you'll find one for £50 though unless you'd consider 2nd hand.

http://www.cameras.co.uk/details/canon-ixus-700.cfm

Some of my videos filmed with the Ixus 700
http://www.vimeo.com/seagull/videos

Leopard

totalsolutions wrote: »

That's normal for a digital camera a few minutes only stored on internal memory then transferred to storage card. You would need a digicam for what your son wants.

Not so.

My two year old digital camera (a Panasonic Lumix FZ7) will record video (and at 30 fps in 848x480 widescreen, with sound, come to that) until its SD card is full - but the SD card has to be a high speed one that can store the input data fast enough.

So it's really fairly common.

(But I certainly wouldn't sell mine for £50!)

Seagull

A friend of mine bought a Fuji F45FD (which takes full video) from here http://www.clearancebargains.co.uk/ they have an online ebay shop. I think that the items sold are either end of line / returns/ refurbished.

Donnie

You will need to look for a camera that utilises MPEG 4 XviD compression. They have the ability to shoot over a hour of video per GB at 30fps using 640 x480 Pixels.

The cameras mentioned above are likely to achieve around 11 minutes of video per GB.

This Samsung i7 will match Leopard's 'super duper' widescreen mode and give you the ability to shoot an hour of video per GB. All for a mere £60.

Plus the footage will be easily edited and coverted into DVD Video if necessary.

Samsung i7 specifications

You can use it as a Personal Media Player too. Watching videos and listening to MP3 files.

Leopard

Donnie wrote: »

You will need to look for a camera that utilises MPEG 4 XviD compression. They have the ability to shoot over a hour of video per GB at 30fps using 640 x480 Pixels.

The cameras mentioned above are likely to achieve around 11 minutes of video per GB.

This Samsung i7 will match Leopard's 'super duper' widescreen mode and give you the ability to shoot an hour of video per GB. All for a mere £60.

Plus the footage will be easily edited and coverted into DVD Video if necessary.

Samsung i7 specifications

You can use it as a Personal Media Player too. Watching videos and listening to MP3 files.

Not far off. Mine actually records at about 13 minutes per GB. Call it 25 minutes on a 2 GB card. More recent models can address larger cards; so that would equate to 50 minutes on a 4GB card, 100 minutes on an 8 GB card.

And that, as I mentioned, is with sound and in 848x480 widescreen - which is nicer to watch on a computer monitor or a television.

Six megapixels gives a decent amount of detail on a 30" monitor. The higher the resolution of the camera, the less you can store on the memory card.

But, of course, you can use more than one card and few people do single takes of 25 minutes. You musn't forget battery-life, either.

All I was trying to do was dispel the myth, advanced by totalsolutions, that a digicam, and not a simple camera, was required.

With which Donnie agrees. And which is what you asked about.

There's nothing "super-duper" about my own camera: it is 6 MP, has a 12x optical zoom and it cost about £230 in 2006.

I'll be buying a new one, with higher spec, next year before going to Italy: Venice, Florence and Verona merit it!

xxdeebeexx

Thanks everyone (thank you button not working atm)

I am still a bit confused and, to be honest I have looked at so many cameras, online, over the past couple of days that I have forgotten what I have seen.

I bought DS2 a Canon Powershot A470 for his recent birthday and it's fab. DS1 (13yrs old) now wants a camera for Christmas but, of course, it has to be better than the canon bought for DS2.

He wants the movie mode so that he can film his juggling acts and carry on 'performing' until the card is used up.

During my search I remember seeing a slogan something like ' The only thing that limits it ,is the size of the memory card '. Any ideas?

I have been looking at the spec of Fujifilm A850 and was wondering what was meant by movie recording time (on hyperlink scroll to the bottom of page to the table extreme rh column )

Thanks so much everyone....... I'm fed up with Christmas already and it's still November!!

Dx

Backbiter

I hope noone thinks I work for Samsung as I've plugged their cameras on here a couple of times lately. The Samsung L and NV series both do what the OP wants - record video for as long as the SD card allows. They record in MPEG format which allows about an hour high quality video per Gb. I'not sure about the other Samsung models - you'd have to check.
Amazon and Play are both selling off the NV30 model for under £80, with Play selling 2Gb Sandisk SD cards for under a fiver.

lazy_tiger

How about a suggestion from the left.

A Flipvideo.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=flipvideo&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

free4440273

hmmmmmm, what kind of videos u shooting with a handle of xxdeebeexx (XXX) :rotfl: